Rape `Victim` Still Trying To Exonerate Accused

LOS ANGELES — Across the continent from her home in Jaffrey, N.H., Cathleen Crowell Webb was here to persuade people that the Illinois man she once accused of raping her is really innocent.

Some people applaud her courage. But as she had already found out in New York, Boston, Detroit and Washington in a promotional tour for her new book, Forgive Me, many others find it difficult to either believe her or forgive her.

In one day here, Webb, 24, and her husband, David, appeared on a local morning television program, a national radio talk show that originates here, and a radio talk show aimed at some 300,000 Christian listeners in southern California.

She explains how a religious conversion in 1981 led her to come forward in March to recant the rape charge against Gary E. Dotson, who had spent more than six years in prison. His sentence was ultimately commuted, but he remains a convicted felon.

Callers to the radio programs invariably asked two questions: Is Webb using this rather bizarre story as a way to wealth and fame? Will her actions turn back the clock on women`s gains in persuading the justice system to take sex crimes seriously?

Webb has long said she would accept no money as a result of her experiences, and she repeats this in her promotional appearances. Her book has sold more than 60,000 copies and is now in a second printing.

According to people familiar with the book contract, Webb received an advance of about $15,000. She said she had given the money to Dotson, less taxes for which she was liable, and would give him all royalties from the book.

Dotson`s attorney, Warren Lupel, has said only that his client received a sum ``in the low five figures.`` In return, Lupel said, Dotson agreed not to sue Webb over the rape charge.

A television miniseries is planned by a team of producers who bought story rights last month from the Webbs, their pastor, the Rev. Carl Nannini, who has been advising Webb, and Dotson and his family.

Joe Dera, a spokesman for the producers, David Levy, Robert Geisler and John Roberdeau, said the rights had been bought for a total of about $350,000. Producers familiar with the negotiations said the Webbs had been promised $100,000, as was Dotson.

No one is quite sure, however, whether Dotson, as a convicted criminal, can even receive money for his story. Under Illinois law, the money must be turned over to the state, which then may give it to the crime victim.

Until that legal question is cleared up, the producers are putting money into a trust for him, Dera said.

The Webbs said their earnings from the television project would also be given to Dotson, although they are expected to retain a portion for legal fees, described by Webb as ``astronomical.``

As Webb, who is six months` pregnant with her third child, tours the country, she is trying to make others understand how an emotionally disturbed 16-year-old living with foster parents in Homewood, Ill., falsely accused a stranger. As she explains it, she had been sexually active since she was 12 but on one July night in 1977 she became afraid she might be pregnant. As a cover, she says she manufactured a rape.

In the book she says that upon accepting Christ she broke ``the pattern of lying that had become my way of life.``

Webb said in an interview that many people now believed some kind of religious cult has brainwashed her. ``Until they see the facts or see my credibility in 1985,`` she said, ``they have a lot of doubts.``

If she can persuade people to believe her, she says, public pressure might lead to a new trial for Dotson, whose 25- to 50-year sentence can be reinstated if he breaks the law.

Webb says she is convinced her recantation will have little effect on future rape cases. But she believes she has reopened old wounds for actual rape victims and provoked their anger.

For his part, Dotson, who is unemployed, newly married and living in a Chicago suburb, is planning a book, to be written by Jeannie Ralston, a magazine editor in New York. She said she planned to approach publishers early next year.